returned in new faces, shining
through the tears of new eyes.
New small adolescent hands
on tiny breasts,
pale silken skin at the thighs,
and the cherry-prick raises hard
innocent heat pointed up
from the muscular belly
of basketball highschool English class spiritual Victory,
made clean at midnight in the bathtub of old City
hair combed for love—
millionaire body from Clayton or spade queen from E St Louis
laughing together in the TWA lounge
Blue-lit airfields into St Louis,
past billboards ruddy neon,
looking for old hero renewed,
a new decade—
Hill-wink of houses,
Monotone road gray bridging the streets
thin bones of aluminum sentineled dark
on the suburban hump bearing high wires
for thought to traverse
river & wood, from hero to hero—
Crane all’s well, the wanderer returns
from the west with his Powers,
the Shaman with his beard
in full strength,
the longhaired Crank with subtle humorous voice
enters city after city
to kiss the eyes of your high school sailors
and make laughing Blessing
for a new Age in America
spaced with concrete but Souled by yourself
with Desire,
or like yourself of perfect Heart, adorable
and adoring its own millioned population
one by one self-wakened
under the radiant signs
of Power stations stacked above the river
highway spanning highway,
bridged from suburb to suburb.
March 1966
Bayonne Entering NYC
Smog trucks mile after mile high wire
Pylons trestled toward New York
black multilane highway showered w/blue arc-lamps,
city glare horizoning
Megalopolis with burning factories—
Bayonne refineries behind Newark Hell-light
truck trains passing trans-continental gas-lines,
blinking safety signs KEEP AWAKE
Giant giant giant transformers,
electricity Stacks’ glowing smoke—
More Chimney fires than all Kansas in a mile,
Sulphur chemical Humble gigantic viaducts
networked by road side
What smell burning rubber, oil
“freshens your mouth”
Railroad rust, deep marsh garbage-fume
Nostril horns—
city Announcer jabbering at City Motel,
flat winking space ships descending overhead
GORNEY GORNEY MORTUARY
Brilliant signs the
10 P.M. clock churchspire lit in Suburb City,
New Jersey’s colored streets asleep—
High derrick spotlites lamped an inch above
roofcombs
Shoprite lit for Nite people before the vast
Hohokus marshes and Passaic’s flat gluey
Blackness ringed with lightbulbs.
Blue Newark airport,
Lights at the field edge,
Robot towers blazon’d Eastern Air TWA
above the lavender bulbed runway
across the barrage of car bridges—
I was born there in Newark
Public Service sign of the twenties
visible miles away through smoke
gray night over electric fields
My aunts and uncles died in hospitals,
are buried in graves surrounded by Railroad Tracks,
tombed near Winking 3 Ring Ballantine Ale’s home
where Western Electric has a Cosmic plant,
Pitt-Consoles breathes forth fumes
acrid above Flying Service tanks
Where superhighway rises over Monsanto
metal structures moonlit
Pulaski Skyway hanging airy black in heaven my childhood
neighbored with gigantic harbor stacks,
steam everywhere
Blue Star buses skimming skyroads
beside th’antennae mazes
brilliant by Canalside—
Empire State’s orange shoulders lifted above the Hell,
New York City buildings glitter
Guys From War put tiger in yr Tank—
Radio crawling with Rockmusic youngsters,
STOP—PAY TOLL
let the hitchhiker off in the acrid Mist—
Blue uniformed attendants rocking on their heels in green booths
Light parade everywhere
Cliff rooms, balconies & giant nineteenth century schools,
reptilian trucks on Jersey roads
Manhattan star-spread behind Ft. Lee cliffside
Evening lights reflected across Hudson water—
brilliant diamond-lantern’d Tunnel
Whizz of bus-trucks shimmer in Ear
over red brick
under Whitmanic Yawp Harbor here
roll into Man city, my city, Mannahatta
Lower East Side ghosted &
grimed with Heroin, shit-black from Edison towers
on East River’s rib—
Green-hatted doormen awaken the eve
in statuary-niched yellow lobbies—
zephyrous canyons brightlit, gray stone Empire State
too small to be God
lords it over sweet Macy’s & Seafood City
by junkie Grant Hotel—
Ho Ho turn right by the Blackman who crosses the street
lighting his cigarette, lone on asphalt
as the Lord in Nebraska—
Down 5th Avenue, brr—the irregular spine
of streetlights—
traffic signals all turned red at once—
insect lamps blink in dim artery
replicated down stone vales to Union Square—
In silence wait to see your home
Cemented asphalt, wire roof-banked,
canyoned, hived & churched with mortar,
mortised with art gas—
passing Ginsberg Machine Co.
th’axhead antique Flatiron
Building looms, old photographs
parked in the mind—
Cannastra your 21st Street lofts dark no more raw
meat law business
Tonite Naomi your 18th Westside Stalinesque
madstreet’s blocked by a bus,
Dusty your 16th (drunk in yr party dress) walls
emptiness Hudson River perspectiv’d
Dali in London? Joe Army yr brokenbone Churches
stand brown in time—
How quiet Washington Monument!
& fairy youth turns head downstreet
crossing 5th Avenue under trafficlite,
doorman playing poodledog
on brilliant-lit sidewalk No. 1.
an old reporter w/ brown leather briefcase
leaves the shiny-pillared apartment—
Gee it’s a Miracle to be back on this street
where strange guy mustache
stares in the windowshield—
Lovely the Steak Sign! bleeps on & off
beneath Woman’s prison—
Sixth Avenue bus back-window bright glass
Lady in kerchief leans backward,
corner Whalen’s Drugs, an old Beret familiar face
nods goodbye girl
Humm, Macdougal I lived here,
Humm, perfect, there’s empty space
Park by the bright-lit bookstore—
Where I’ll find my mail
& Harmonium, new from Calcutta
Waiting I come back to New York & begin to Sing.
March 1966
Growing Old Again
The delicate french girl jukebox husky lament
softens the air over checkered tablecloths
I haven’t been in Kettle of Fish a year
Between my Moscows and Wichitas a lonesome moment
Content to gaze at Bodenheim & Gould in garish oil,
Phantoms I’m not over the bar wall mirroring photos
of old habitués renowned characteristic seasons for lack
of immortality, a bunch of provincial drunks fucked up
D.T. unbearables or Mafia brothers-in-law.
Old charm of anonymity, phonograph memory playing
familiar bar tunes infrequent visited much
once real hotspot cops on telephone me drunk loved
some heart friend image money at same table same
prophecy felt immortal then—now come true sit
decade hence jukebox-dazed an Angel remembered to forget.
March 3, 1966
Uptown
Yellow-lit Budweiser signs over oaken bars,
“I’ve seen everything”—the bartender handing me change of $10,
I stared at him amiably eyes thru an obvious Adamic beard—
with Montana musicians homeless in Manhattan, teenage
curly hair themselves—we sat at the antique booth & gossiped,
Madame Grady’s literary salon a curious value in New York—
“If I had my way I’d cut off your hair and send you to Vietnam”—
“Bless you then” I replied to a hatted thin citizen hurrying to the barroom door
upon wet dark Amsterdam Avenue decades later—
“And if I couldn’t do that I’d cut your throat” he snarled farewell,
and “Bless you sir” I added as he went to his fate in the rain, dapper Irishman.
April 1966
The Old Village Before I Die
Entering Minetta’s soft yellow chrome, to the acrid bathroom
22 years ago a gold kid wrote “human-kindness” contrasting
“humankind-ness” on enamel urinal where Crane’s match skated—
Christmas subway, lesbian slacks, friend bit someone’s earlobe off
tore gold ring from queer ear, weeping, vomited—
My first drunk nite flashed here, Joe Gould’s beard gray
(“a professional bore” said Bill cruelly)—but as I was less than twenty,
New scene rayed eternal—caricatures of ancient comedians
framed over checkertabled booths, first love struck my heart heavy
prophecy of this moment I looked in the urinal mirror returning decades
late same heavy honey in heart—bearded hairy bald with age
Soft music Smoke gets in your eyes Michele Show Me the Way to Go to Jail
from stereophonic jukebox that once echoed You Always Hurt The One You Love as dear Jack
did know under portraits of Al Smith, Jimmy Walker, Jimmy Durante, Billy Rose.
May 11, 1966
Consulting I Ching Smoking Pot Listening to the Fugs Sing Blake
That which pushes upward
does not come back
He led me in his garden
tinkle of 20 year phonograph
Death is icumen in
and mocks my loss of liberty
One must see the Great Man
Fear not it brings blessing
No Harm
from the invisible world
Perseverance
Realms beyond
Stoned
in the deserted city
which lies below consciousness
June 1966
Zigzag Back Thru These States
(1966–1967)
Wings Lifted over the Black Pit
City Flats, Coal yards and brown rivers
Tower groups toyed by silver bridge
Sudden the snake uncoils
w/ thousands of little bodies riding granite scales
looped in approach to Geo. Washington’s steel trestle
roped to Jersey west
Blue sunray on air heights, bubbled with thick steam
roofing the planet—
The jet plane glides toward Chicago.
Blue ground lands, chill cabin, white wings
Stretch over mist-ribboned horizon
small windows let in half moon
a silver jet hangs in the sky south
Brown gas of the City wrapped over hills—
Chanting Mantras all the way
Hare Krishna etc.
Till dinner, great Lake below,
Heard a sweet drone in the plane-whine
Hari Om Namo Shivaye—So
Made my own music
American Mantra—
“Peace in Chicago,
Peace in Saigon—”
Raw orange sunset, & plunging in white cloud-shore
Floated thru vast fog-waves
down to black Chicago bottom
O’Hare Field’s runway’s blue insect lights on Wingèd Machinery
Ozark Airways zoom up toward the Moon
Square Networks bulb-lit
Twinkling blocks massed toward horizon
Kremlin’d with red towers,
Aethereal cloverleafs’ pinpointed circlets,
Metropolis by night,
By air, Man’s home filamented black panorama-skin
brilliant below my chair & book—
Impossible to be Mayor! know all details!?
Alleyed with light,
lampless yards
blazing compounds factoried cube-like,
prisons shining brilliant!
Suburban moviehouses’ tiny glow
by the Delicatessen corner,
Vast hoards of men Negro’d in the gloom,
gnashing their teeth for miles.
Tears in attick’s blackness
Swastikas worshipped in the White Urb,
clean teeth bared in Reptilian smiles—
Newsphoto Vision: M. L. King Attacked by Rocks—
Dark Land,
Sparse networks of Serpent electricity
Dotted between towers
Signaling to themselves beneath the moon—
*
Living like beasts,
befouling our own nests,
Smoke & Steam, broken glass & beer cans,
Auto exhaust—
Civilization shit littering the streets,
Fine black mist over apartments
watercourses running with oil
fish fellows dead—
June 1966
Cleveland, the Flats
To D. A. Levy
Into the Flats, thru Cleveland’s
Steeple trees illuminated
Lake Bridge Light college cars speed round white lines
thru Green Lights, past downtown’s pale Hotels
Triple towers smokestacked steaming in blue nite
buildings in water, the shimmer of that
factory in the blackness
a little tinkle RR engine bell
See the orange bedroom shack
under the viaduct
crisscrossed with 1930s raindrops Tragedies
extrapolating railroads overhead—
Asphalt road bumps—
that blue flame burning? Industry!
Bom! Bom! Mahadev! Microphone Icecream!
Battle Conditions! Come in Towers!
Buster Keaton died today, folksongs in the iron smell
of Republic Steel, hish—!
American children crossing Jones Laughlin’s yellow
bridge saying o how
Beautiful, and Work ye Tarriers Work
in the fiery hill on the Press,
under black smoke—
Oh yes look, the lake mill lights—
Like an organpipe that smokestack
Hart Crane died under—
Black Tank Skeleton lifted over railroads’ orange lamps,
; illustrious robots stretched with wires,
smoking organpipes of God in the Cleveland Flats
Open hearth furnaces light up sky,
all night gas station
Polack Stokers running out of money
“Bearded short Amish, square-faced & incestuous,
big-eared buck-toothed women, like cross-eyed cats”
Steelton downhill, that smell What is it?
The guys wander up & down their gas refining Cracker
climbing ladders in white light—
Butane smells—Creosote—
“Looka that gas-cloud we just passed thru—”
Twin heavy smokestacks there—
Space age children wandering like lost orphans
thru the landscape filled with iron—
their grandfathers sweated over forges!
now all they know is all them rockets they see silvery
Quivering on Television—
I don’t know any more.
Move ye wheels move
for Independent Towel—
Dakota Hotel, old Red brick apartment,
up Carnegie to University Circle,
Om Om Om Sa Ra Wa Buddha Dakini Yea,
Benzo Wani Yea Benzo Bero
Tsani Yea Hum Hum Hum
Phat Phat Phat Svaha!
June 1966
To the Body
Enthroned in plastic, shrouded in wool, diamond crowned,
transported in aluminum, shoe’d in synthetic rubber, fed by asparagus,
adored by all animals,
ear-lull’d by electric mantra rock, chemical roses acrid in the nose,
observant of large-nostril’d air factories, every crack of the skin kissed by
beloved grandmothers,
so man woman child are tender meat become consciously genital with the
shudder & blush of substance
adorned with hair at crotch and brain—beard on lion and youth by fireside.
June 15, 1966
Iron Horse
I
This is the creature I am!
Sittin in little roomette Santa Fe train
naked abed, bright afternoon sun light
leaking below closed window-blind
White hair at chest, ridge
where curls old Jewish lock
Belly bulged outward, breathing as a baby
old appendix scar
creased where the belt went
detumescent cannon on two balls soft pillowed
Soft stirring shoots thru breast to belly—
What romance planned by the body unconscious?
What can I shove up my ass?
Masturbation in America!
little spasm delight, prick head